Page 49 of Peaches & Pistols

“Mama! I’m hungry!” Everly bounds down the hall with Harper hot on her heels.

“I love peanut butter!” Harper does a little clap, smiling brightly at me. “Daddy, can we have apple juice?”

Greyson looks to me for permission, which is absurd. It’s his daughter and his home.

“Think we’ve got some juice boxes,” he affirms, giving Harper the go ahead to snag two from the fridge and the girls start awkwardly trying to stab the flimsy straws into the cartons.

He leans into me a fraction and whispers, “We aren’t done with this conversation.”

I spend lunch and the rest of the afternoon in a daze. I’ve never been more grateful Everly’s a clingy child.

It’s not until her bedtime that I’m alone with Greyson again. I can’t delay any longer, so I take a seat on the couch just one cushion away from him, folding my legs beneath me.

“I’ve never told a soul any of this. I don’t even know where to start.”

Being a man of few words, he’s comfortable waiting me out. Eventually, he pulls out his phone and gestures it in my direction.

“Don’t ask how, but from experience, having this type of thing documented is paramount. Would you be comfortable if we recorded our conversation? If you ever need to use it in court? I’m probably overstepping but I assume you might eventually want to file for divorce or to get custody of Everly?”

“What do you mean, get custody? I’m her mother.” Panic rises in my chest.

“You are, but he could twist this and claim you took her without consent and file a report. We don’t want him weaponizing the system.”

I can’t get enough air, the room swirling in front of my unfocused eyes. A heartbreaking moan fills the air, so loud in my ears my head swivels trying to find the source.

The noise is coming from me.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay,” Greyson soothes, having eliminated the space between us, gently stroking my hair.

“That’s why it’s important to get a record of your experience—to protect you should it ever come down to it,” he explains.

His kind touch grounds me, but I reflexively pull away. The only positive touch I’ve had since Charlie died has been from Everly. Greyson graciously moves back to his spot, giving me space. I nod and he starts recording on his phone.

I can’t bear to see his reactions, so I focus on my split ends. When was the last time I had a haircut? Carter hadn’t let me go to the salon in months as punishment.

“My parents kicked me out when I turned eighteen.” I shake my head in disbelief. “I didn’t understand it then, and now as a parent, I can’t imagine doing that to Everly. I suppose not everyone is meant to have children.”

“Carter asked me on a date not even a month later. I turned eighteen right before graduating and was lucky the restaurant I’d been working at was able to give me full-time hours after graduation.” I dare to look at Greyson through the curtain of my hair, to find him clasping his hands together, head hung between his shoulders.

“He said he’d been a regular at the restaurant and had been admiring me for months. He started requesting to be seated in my section. I don’t know how he always knew when I’d be on shift. Maybe he went every day hoping to see me? Or maybe he was already controlling me, and I had no clue.”

“I’d bet money on the latter.” Sad thing is, if he bet that money, he’d win.

“Carter swept me off my feet. He was like my savior, sheltering me in his protective arms and taking me in. A whirlwind of promises and love bombing led to us walking down the aisle after dating only a couple of months.” I shake my head in disgust for being so naïve.

“He moved you in?” Greyson asks.

“Almost immediately. As soon as I explained my situation, he insisted. I was unsure, but being offered a reliable place to live muffled my doubts.”

He nods, biting the inside of his lips, probably to stop himself from telling me how stupid I was for trusting Carter. The funny thing is, on paper, it doesn’t look all that different from my situation here. Greyson moved me in after only a couple of days, too.

But my body knows the difference. With Greyson, nothing in me is bracing for impact. There’s no buzzing under my skin, no warning sirens I have to shove down just to function. With Carter, those alarms were screaming, but I convinced myself security mattered more.

“People say hindsight is twenty-twenty, which is a nice way of saying you don’t know you’ve made a terrible mistake until it’s too late. My wedding night revealed the truth of the situation in which I’d willingly entered.”

Greyson cracks his neck to the left, and then the right, growing agitated with the gravity of the situation I got myself into.

“I don’t know how much more of this you’re going to want to hear…”